


I Start to Miss You, Baby (Sometimes)

by roseisreturning



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-01-26 20:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1702025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseisreturning/pseuds/roseisreturning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teenage clones with blogs of varying popularity and too much time on their hands. From the perspectives of Cosima, Alison, Beth, and Sarah.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jenny, Darling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cosima.  
> Time zones are a bitch. Crushes, more so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspired by a post by tumblr user cozimaniehauz.  
> one of the links in this chapter is real. you should click on that link. another link in this chapter is random. clicking on that will get you an unrelated movie. both links are safe. click as you please.

**COSIMA.**

You sent her the link nine hours ago.

> oh my goddddd
> 
> <http://seven-lilies.tumblr.com/post/55480478320/>

She didn’t have to reply right then or anything. It was five in the morning for her when you’d sent it. You know that. The timezone converter you keep open twenty-four hours a day knows that.

But you both know that it is now a perfectly reasonable hour in Paris, and Delphine is awake and online and not even  _hiding_  it.

Shit.

She replied.

You kind of don’t want to read it.

You do.

> thinking of anyone?

You’re not sure if this was the response you wanted.

> maybeee… get on skype ok?

"Hey!" she says.

"Hey," you say, just before you catch a glimpse of yourself at the corner of your screen. "Uh, sorry I look like shit, but I never really took off my makeup last night…"

"No! You look fine!"

"Oh my god, look at my eyes."

"Maybe a little."

"Thanks."

"So…?" Delphine is leaning into her screen so closely that her hair ( _her hair_ ) takes up most of your display.

"So," you say, caught between platonic and crushy giggling, "how great was that cover?"

"Pretty great. But I’m curious!"

"About my pathetic teenage love life?"

She laughs, but not without your cue. “Yes!” she says. You want to lie.

"I mean, like, working off the song, or whatever, you’ve got that? I don’t know, man. We’re friends. She’s cute."

"Mm." She is further away from her webcam now, her head resting on her hand. You focus on this instead of how fucked you'll be if it clicks with her. "Is she…?"

"Straight? Uh, no. No. She’s definitely not straight."

"That’s good!"

"Oh my god, she’s totally not into me, though. I mean, she could be, but…"

She finishes your sentence for you. "You wouldn’t know it."

"Yeah, uh, I’m kinda clueless when it comes to that. But, like, whatever. What’s going on over there?"

"Nothing? I can’t think of anything I haven’t made hundreds of posts on."

"No crushes?"

"You’ll be the first to know."

"Ugh, dude, did you see that new ep?"

“ _Doctor Who?_ ”

"Yeah."

"Just on my dash. I can’t find a link, don’t tell me anything!"

"Okay, but, um, just, FYI, it’s gonna rip your heart out."

"I’ll keep that in mind."

"Like, seriously. There were only, like, two lines that made me cringe, not even kidding."

"Mm, what were they?"

"Ugh, nothing that needs warning. I’m not ruining the surprise."

"Okay, okay. Link me!"

"Sure, sure, uh, do you want me to find one for you now? I probably have to, like, get dressed soon, so I don’t wanna abandon you."

"No, it’s fine. Timezones are crazy."

You end the call and open a new tab. timeanddate.com reminds you of the 5579 miles between you. You feel more pathetic than ever and search for the new episode.

You find one on your third click, copy the link, and open Delphine’s blog.

> new ep ayyyy (liveblog it’s hilarious) (your liveblogging, not the ep) (the ep will rip your heart out)
> 
> <http://www.firedrive.com/file/5D2ABC2E05C1A290>

You haven’t left your laptop by the time you get her reply.

> you’re the best ily
> 
> (i don’t know if i’ll liveblog though, it’s too much pressure!)

She liveblogs anyway, and tags you in every post.

When you get the time to like them all, she is at 28% in your Tumblr Crushes.

You post them with the title  _am i really that obvious?_

She replies with a photo of her own. You have 33% of her love. Another notification fades onto your dash.

> a match made in heaven

Your reply is six letters long.

> otp tbh

You start your reading for AP Chem, because on a list of things you should not be thinking of, this is at the top.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry i'm so obsessed with au writing. but i promise i'll try to stick to this one...?


	2. Just Where We Begun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alison.  
> Blogging about your personal life makes it somewhat less personal.

**ALISON.**

You wake up to twenty-eight new messages.

Anonymous asked you:

 

> are you okay?

crafter85 asked you:

 

> Hi, I hope you’re feeling better. :)

scarves-scarves-scarves asked you:

 

> You haven’t posted since your read more. What’s going on, Ali?

Anonymous asked you:

 

> do you want to talk?

Anonymous asked you:

 

> what happened??

Anonymous asked you:

 

> I love your blog! I hope you’re okay.

Anonymous asked you:

 

> i’m sending you this message to let you know that i care about you. please don’t feel too down for long. we love you ali! <3

Anonymous asked you:

 

> I don’t know you but someone I follow wanted us to let you know how important you are to everyone. She really cares about you, and she’s not the only one. Stay strong.

Anonymous asked you:

 

> I love you.

Anonymous asked you:

 

> i care about you.

Anonymous asked you:

 

> you’re going to be okay. i believe in you.

Then, a string of messages from the same user.

lingvistika asked you:

 

> this is really awkward for you… if you need to talk just message me, okay?

lingvistika asked you:

 

> just, uh, i’m here for you, okay? my name is beth.

lingvistika asked you:

 

> this is weird. i just feel like we might be going through something similar..

lingvistika asked you:

 

> you don’t follow me, but i really love your blog and you seem really nice. your selfies are bad, but they’re cute. what i’m saying is that i care about you a lot.

You don’t reply.

You open her blog in a new tab. It’s nothing like yours—filled with TED Talks and lengthy text posts about German compound words.

You hover over her sidebar image, a grainy photo of a girl who’s probably her. Her description fades in.

 

> beth. 16. ontario. athlete and biromantic ace. before you ask, i don’t reproduce by budding. fission is more on my level. sorry.

You move your cursor to her ask link, fingers poised just over the keys. ( _Thank you_ , they are ready to type,  _but I really am okay now._ ) They don’t. Under a beginner’s guide to Korean is a link.

To your blog.

In large, aqua blue letters:

 

> i hit ask limit

And smaller, in black:

 

> i was kind of overzealous with sending alison (alisoncrafts) my love, but you should send her yours with equivalent enthusiasm

_Follow._

_Dashboard._

There isn’t a red bubble beside the envelope, but you click it anyway, scrolling what feels like miles to get to Beth’s first message.

 You type:

 

> Thank you for thinking of me. I’m not sure what your situation is, but I appreciate your advice. If my parents knew, they would want me to go into therapy. There’s nothing wrong with that, if you do. But I can’t have that on me right now. Thank you again, Beth. xx

_Answer privately._

You open up a new post, a smiling selfie attached.

 

> Feeling much better now!

Tags: personal, selfie, lingvistika, if you think my selfies are so bad

You’re considering reblogging a how-to on faux bangs when a paler blue box appears in the corner of your screen.

lingvistika liked your post

lingvistika replied to your post:

 

> hey, i also said you were cute

lingvistika reblogged your post

You don’t let yourself think about the feeling you get when you look at her blog and see her face next to yours. You don’t have time to let yourself think about it—you scroll just past your caption and see  _that_  tag.

filed under: ;)

That was ironic, right? That was completely ironic.

(You don’t want it to be ironic.)

Aynsley’s boyfriend messaged you on Facebook like that, a week or two ago.  _hey hendrix ;) “_ Was that some kind of joke, Chad?” you’d asked the next day. He’d played it off.

You wonder if Beth would do the same thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i would be lying if i said i didn't post this so quickly because i can't wait for the sarah chapter. which is still a chapter away? oops.


	3. To the Faraway Towns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth.  
> Friendship leads to a dashboard of mutuals, and sometimes to crushes.

**BETH.**

Enough porn blogs are on your following list for you to know that there will always be the follower that doesn’t make sense. londoncallinged is one of those followers.

Probably.

Upon closer inspection, you discover three things.

One: Her name is Sarah.

Two: She has bad taste in music.

Three: She is a borderline genius coder.

Her theme is hers. The music player in her sidebar is hers. Every customization to her dashboard is hers. The screenshot showcasing this even happens to tell you that there are 583 items in her queue.

You kind of want to rat on her for it, but remember the pale blue XKit logo at the top of your dash and decide against it. Instead, you follow her back. Your dash has been slow for weeks.

Alison’s blogroll is useless.

You only follow her for her. Her brand of DIY-meets-theatre blogging does nothing for you.

You click on one of the icons anyway.

biandeuropean.

Cosima has been talking about her for weeks.

 

> omg do you follow delphine

> did you see delphine’s selfie omg im cryign why cant she live in sf

> ugh she’S SO CUTE??

> how have i lasted a year without telling her how frickin gay i am for her

> tho i guess im gay for everyone

> especially delphine tho mmm

You hadn’t been able to follow a word of it.

And now you can’t follow a word of Delphine’s blog.

You didn’t even know there  _was_  a  _Legally Blonde_  musical.

She does seem nice. She reblogs other stuff, too.

But you are more lost than you can ever remember being.

You follow Delphine anyway.

Then, you spend what feels like twenty years on your dash.

It’s probably closer to ten minutes, but in your scroll, Alison hasn’t made a single post.

You know you’ll never use them, but seeing posts like “Ten Fun Ways to Tie a Ribbon!” is nice, somehow. Seeing Alison is nice.

You’d be lying if you said velartrill hasn’t made your day, but Alison is different somehow.

Alison is definitely different.

And you are definitely fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next chapter is my favorite chapter on earth i hope you like it!! i hope you liked this one too, but you know... i really hope you like the next one.


	4. I Know I'm Your Recruit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Passive-aggressively correcting someone's grammar is the surest way to start shit.

**SARAH.**

Two hundred. Just to prove you could. One account. Two hundred.

Where the fuck did she get that money from?

"If you don’t want it, I have other options."

"I’ve got it, Rachel."

"I hope so. I’ll be checking in."

"Right. Blast from the past."

"I’m not going to be your next mark, Sarah."

"Keep paying me, you won’t."

"Precautions are precautions."

"Look. I’ll have your proof end of week, twenty-first century or not."

"I’ll call you then."

You end the call.

You’ve gained fifty followers. lingvistika is one of them.

In another universe, you and Beth probably could have been friends.

In this universe, she was an easy target.

She would have been an easy target for anyone with your face, and Rachel knows it.

"If she’s your mark," she’d said, voice strained, "I don’t want to hear about you posing as her to get in. Do what you have to do, Sarah, but I need more than a girl with a flat iron."

You write a new post.

> anyone got a link to a good straightener? my hair’s a wreck

It only takes Rachel two minutes to text you.

> Very funny

Another text comes in immediately following the first.

> Just remember your the one working for me

If it had been anyone else, you wouldn’t have done it.

> *you’re :)

You can almost see her smiling condescendingly.

> Charming

> End of week

She doesn’t say anything more after that. Neither do you.

You write up a new theme and wait for Beth to make the post you’re waiting for. She doesn’t. She reblogs some girl’s selfies, then a post on where to learn Spanish, then a post about different kinds of past tense in five different languages. But she never asks for submissions.

Her queue is dwindling. You see pages of personal posts before you see anything even remotely related to language. When you started following her, ten queued posts were published daily. By Wednesday, Beth is down to three.

You send her a message on anon.

> is everything ok? your blog seems slow lately :/

Her reply is everything you could have wanted.

> yeah everything’s fine. my tracked tags are just really slow so submissions would be cool?
> 
> i don’t really have any rules but like… don’t send me nudes or whatever?

You wait until the post has enough notes for you to blend in, then open her blog in an incognito window.

You enter in some bullshit email address and submit your link.

> <http://huff.to/1hrumC6>
> 
> haha sorry i couldn’t get the actual link thing to work but i read this the other day and thought of you

Three hours later, Beth opens the link and posts it to her account.

Then, paranoid as she is, she makes a new text post.

> ugh ever since alison reblogged that post i feel like i have to change my password every time i get an anon submission :/

She does.

_5rGvy4YkzBEX_

You start thinking of ways to spend two hundred dollars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these chapter titles are getting worse and worse but i'm so excited for this chapter. this chapter is everything to me. i poured my heart and soul into this chapter. i really hope you liked it. please tell me you liked it. (please tell me you're as attracted to teen hacker sarah manning as i am.)


	5. Bend and Snap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cosima.  
> Like this post if your best friend is an ocean away and you're starting to think there's a reason for that.

You’re starting to think that you’re not a likable person.

The last time someone outside of Tumblr talked to you of their own free will, they were asking for help with Pre-calc. (You didn’t bother to tell them that you were probably no better at Pre-calc than anyone else in the class. You were just glad to have someone to acknowledge you.)

The last time someone on Tumblr talked to you of their own free will, they wanted to know if you followed back on request. (You don’t. You’ve  _never_ followed back on request. Or, like, at all.)

Your best friend wasn’t even talking to you.

(Your best friend didn’t even live in the country.)

(Your best friend’s first language wasn’t even English.)

(Your best friend has been drifting away ever since you’d linked her to that goddamn song.)

You message Beth.

> hypothetically you have a (best) friend and this (best) friend has a crush on you. if you didn’t respond to your hypothetical (best) friend’s ask, could your h(b)f safely assume you were ignoring them or…?

Ten minutes later, you have your reply.

> if it’s delphine i’m pretty sure she’s into you lol i went through  100 pgs (seriously i’m ridiculous) of her blog before i followed her it was basically a shrine to you

Which was true.

But a hundred pages was a lot of time.

A hundred pages was a month.

A hundred pages ago, you hadn't been convincing yourself that Delphine felt the same. _  
_

If you had just been normal—

You don’t think anyone has ever been more anxious upon seeing a gifset captioned " _bend and snap_ " than you are right now.

Delphine is back online.

You aren’t even close to caught up with your dash. You refresh it anyway.

You have one new message.

biandeuropean asked you:

> sorry i’ve been so distant lately… it’s nothing against you. i’ve just been thinking. <3

It probably looks pathetic to reply so soon, but you do.

> yeah yeah it’s no big deal!! you can talk to me about it if you want? but i guess maybe now you’re getting past it? idk omg sorry it’s totally okay whatevss

_Answer privately._

She takes ten minutes to get back to you.

> thank you.. sorry for making us weird. or if we weren’t, sorry for doing that now.
> 
> give me a week? i will tell you everything then

It is the worst week of your life, but twenty replies to just as many missed posts later, Delphine is true to her word.


	6. Hope We’re on the Same Wavelength

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alison.  
> Turn-ons: cute athletic bloggers in mutuals with your number-one Tumblr crush.

**ALISON.**

Three weeks after your breakdown, Beth makes a post saying this:

> mutuals can hit me up with their number, btw. i’m sooo bored

Tags: alisoncrafts, leopardenprint, cosiam

You wait seven minutes after you see it before replying. Just to be safe.

Beth holds none of your restraint. She sends you her number immediately.

Your first text to her is one word

> Hi!

You don’t get anything. Then:

> Who is this?

You cringe.

> Alison…

It feels like forever before you get a reply.

> Who?

_Jesus Christ._

> Never mind. Wrong number. Sorry!

The replies come much faster this time.

> dude, i was screwing with you
> 
> oh my god did you seriously buy that?

You did.

> No comment?

Again, the lightning-fast reply.  _God_. She really was fucking with you.

> oh my god you did
> 
> it’s ok, cosima fell for it too

You have no idea who that is, and Beth must realize it. Another message comes in before you have a chance to tell her she’s lost you.

> cosiam? that’s her url. sorry i have to go, ok? bye!

Three hours too late, you read her text.

> alison?

Ballet starts in fifteen minutes.

> Yes?

"Alison! Are you ready?"

"Two seconds!"

"Do you need your permit?"

"I have it."

Your mother is already waiting by the door, keys in hand.

Ballet is three hours today, and two of them are spent thinking about Beth.

You have four new texts from her when you finally have the chance to check your phone

> are you here?

> alison?

> you’re busy, right?

> ok sorry nvm

You text her immediately.

> Sorry! Ballet. Are you okay?

She doesn’t respond.

You run up to your room before your mother can drill you on any other emergency driving protocols.

You have three new messages. They are all from Beth.

lingvistika asked you:

> did i totally fuck us up

lingvistika asked you:

> you really didn’t need to hear that im such an asshole omfg

lingvistika asked you:

> i cant sleep and im shaking and i dont know what to do i have 100000 articles on this shit bookmarked but none of them are helping im sorry i just trust you more than anyone else

You click on her URL. The page doesn’t load fast enough.

Then, it’s there.

There are three queued posts before you see one from her.

It’s last night’s post.

> mutuals can hit me up with their number, btw. i’m sooo bored

Cosima had followed you last night, and you’re almost positive it’s too soon to message her.

You do it anyway.

> Hi, Cosima. Do you know if Beth’s okay? She hasn’t been online for a while.

Twenty minutes later, she still hasn’t replied, and there are ten new posts to her blog.

Beth still isn’t online.

You text Aynsley.

She replies two minutes later.

> Sorry, Ali! Volunteering. You know how it is. </3

And that’s it. You refresh your dash.

biandeuropean started following you

You, Tumblr user alisoncrafts, have been followed by Tumblr royalty. Delphine, who makes a casual post every other week about a follower milestone (30k as of yesterday, you remember). Following you.

Her blog is all over the place, but you don’t think she’s ever been the kind of blogger you are.

Then, you remember the heart in her sidebar.

Cosima.

They talk nonstop. They post vague, pining read mores just when the other signs off. The first question on Delphine’s FAQ asks whether she and Cosima are dating.

They aren’t.

You queue ten posts from her before you go back to your dash and like one, a selfie with the caption

> ja’i vraiment le béguin pour elle… je suis un dork

Posted just when Cosima would be falling asleep.

Cosima had liked, reblogged, and replied to it anyway.

> a cute dork! (even if i had to google translate that first part) (who is she?!)

You never saw a reply on Delphine’s blog, but when you find yourself back on your dash, there is a new text post from Delphine.

> updated my faq! ♥

Immediately below it is one from Cosima.

> suddenly have the cutest girlfriend ever
> 
> what’s new with you?

It already has twenty-eight notes. All you can think about is Beth.


End file.
